WWTBAM Bored

Today's album has made a lot of "Best of All-Time" lists:


27. PET SOUNDS-THE BEACH BOYS (1966)

Paul McCartney has said that when they first heard "Pet Sounds", their reaction was "uh-oh". Macca has also stated that they considered
Brian Wilson their main artistic competition, and that "God Only Knows" is his favorite song ever. So what else can I add? This is a
work of art. "God Only Knows", "Caroline No", "You Still Believe In Me"...stunningly gorgeous songs. Creative touch after creative touch
throughout. I can't say I like every song on the album (one of their most beloved songs, "Sloop John B", has never really done much for
me)...but I like most of them...and I ADMIRE every single one.

I love that like-and-admire place - for me, it's groups like U2 and AC/DC - I can appreciate their talent and artistry, but I'm never going to pay for any of their music or seek it out to listen to (except I did buy "Stuck in a Moment").

I've heard the Beatles vs. Beach Boys artistic competition before and it isn't any contest. The lads from Liverpool win in a landslide. If you go by sheer musical production value -- how the songs "sound", the way they're mixed, the way the vocals blend in -- it's George Martin by a mile. Now, I like Pet Sounds and some of the songs like God Only Knows are just wonderful, but Brian Wilson's idea of musical enhancement is adding a tambourine to the start of every song. The drums are woefully mixed and there's no bass to speak of.

I wish the BBs put as much into this as they did to Good Vibrations. That song is gold standard for mid-sixties studio production and it rivaled anything the Beatles did. But it's just one song. Pet Sounds is not Abbey Road. Not even close.

T-Bone doubtless knows this, but for those who don't, John B is a Bahamian folk song. Someone at a festival sang us the whole song, which has a whole verse section with a diff tune than the one we know from the BB's & the Kingston Trio, followed by the tunes we know.

Which I've been trying to hunt down periodically, but strangely enough not everything is on the web. The reference should be though.

Anyway, *I* like it, all versions.

OK, here's a clip you can play from Alan Lomax's collection "Deep River of Song: Bahamas 1935: Chanteys and Anthems from Andros and Cat Island".

Song is listed as "Histe up the John B Sail"

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012JEPQI/ref=pm_ws_tlw_trk7

No new verse tune here, so I don't know where the singer I heard got theirs from.

There was a real Sloop John B. It wrecked around 1900 (to no-one's great surprise, considering what shape the crew was usually in).

http://themanwhonevermissed.blogspot.co ... ohn-b.html

I heard that Pet Sounds lit a competitive fire under McCartney and resulted in Sgt. Pepper.